Everything Dan Lanning Said Following Oregon’s Second Spring Practice
Oregon continued its spring schedule with its second practice on Saturday. The Ducks have more than two weeks before their next practice as the student athletes head to spring break.
On if including spring break during spring camp was intentional:
"Yeah, it was. Everything we do is intentional. There was some stuff already set up from a schedule standpoint from academic opening up, and then it also allowed us to take advantage of the beginning of this week from a time standpoint. But right now, we just told our guys look, you're about to have discretionary week and then have spring break. So how do we utilize these next two weeks to continue to move forward instead of moving back, so our guys have to be deliberate with their time. They really have to be aware of what they're doing moving forward, and I think they'll do a good job of that."
Dan Lanning
Scott Boldt/Ducks Digest
On health of Alex Forsyth, Marcus Harper II, and Jonathan Denis:
"I think we'll get a lot of these guys back relatively soon. It's certainly impacted, but what it's allowed us to do is work other people at those positions and continue to improve."
On quarterbacks working together:
"I think we have a mature group. You look out there and you want competitive toughness. You want guys that go out there and work every single day to get better. But the reality is they also realize they can make each other better if they share their knowledge and share what they see. So they're doing a good job of that."
Bo Nix, Ty Thompson, & Jay Butterfield
Scott Boldt/Ducks Digest
On handling position battles and how players are made aware of standing:
"I think the meeting room updates guys on where they stand. They know if they're doing things right or doing things wrong based on how they're evaluated every single day in practice. One thing that's our job as coaches is to teach and give immediate feedback. So we're teaching every single day. We're giving immediate feedback after practice, during practice, and before the next practice. That's our goal, and guys realize where they stand because of that."
On what stood out in practice today/what he will look at:
"Efficiency is always number one for me as far as how we operated. Can we be more efficient with our time? Last practice, we came off the field saying we need to be better in our transitions. We're keeping ourselves on the field longer than we need to be, and our guys did a much better job of that. So we're picking a goal each day that we can be better at as we move. Also making sure that we get guys enough reps in enough different positions. That's something we continue to evaluate is our rep count at each spot, our guys getting to work in multiple spots and how that's affecting them moving forward."
On moving Jeffrey Bassa to inside linebacker:
"Intelligence. He's smart. I think inside linebackers nowadays, there's no such thing as a true MIKE backer anymore. You have to have speed on the field. He's a guy that can be sideline to sideline, has the athleticism of a defensive back but has the physicality of a linebacker. All good linebackers nowadays can run, and Jeff has that trait."
Jeffrey Bassa
Scott Boldt/Ducks Digest
Update on Popo Aumavae:
"He's still going through rehab right now."
On running meetings and who has influenced the way he runs meetings:
"I still just lean on the experience that I've had with coaches I've been with in the past, whether it be Coach [Nick] Saban, Coach [Kirby] Smart, Coach [Mike] Norvell, Coach [Todd] Graham, just all those guys. I think one of the biggest things I learned from good head coaches is they coach the coaches too. There's different methods to doing that, but if we want to improve our players, we have to get better as coaches. I'll say this: our coaches are super receptive. They're all really great teachers. That's something we pride ourselves on, but I'm looking at our position meetings. I like to sit in a lot of different position group meetings. I like to travel on the field from individual group to individual group or team period to team period, and I'm going to continue to do that and try to find the flaws and places that we can grow."
On self-evaluation and what he needs to improve over next two weeks:
"Every day, I write down notes of something I did bad that I can get better at. I challenge our coaches to identify something I can improve on as well. This is a learner's and grower's environment. That's our staff. So if there's something we can do better, I'm not a guy that wants a bunch of yes men around me. I want to make sure that we can improve if there's something we can do better in a better way. We want to do that at the end of the day. I have veto power, and we might or might not, but we're gonna listen and try to adjust on the fly. And it's not just about our players getting better. It's about our coaches getting better. It's about myself getting better, creating some of those move-the-field environments where we have to coach on the fly and operate. I think that's really important as we go through practice to practice."
On if Oregon will have 11-on-11 or 7-on-7 scrimmages:
"We have our 15 practices already kind of mapped out, what those will look like. We'll have two scrimmage days in there that'll be really exclusive scrimmage days. We'll work some special teams on those days as well. But every single day in practice, we're gonna have 11-on-11 periods. Whether it be tackle or not, that's different, but we'll compete, we'll thud, we'll have different tempos that we operate with throughout spring based on the timing of spring, but we do have that laid out already."
Bailey Jaramillo vs. Bradyn Swinson
Scott Boldt/Ducks Digest
What next two weeks look like for Lanning and staff:
"We'll definitely focus first this next week on professional development. More than anything, there's a lot of knowledge within our staff that I think we can share with each other, meaning the offense coaching the defense on something they see. I think it's a great opportunity for us to do some across-the-ball projects against each other and then also do some projects within our own rooms where coaches can share some ideas of how they've done things differently. We really haven't had as much time as people might think for those kinds of opportunities. Also, certainly an opportunity to be great dads and great husbands. We're looking for that. You don't just talk about it, you gotta be about it."
On if team will have scrimmage in Portland or in front of fans:
"That could be a plan in the future. Right now, it's not part of the plan."
On offensive install and balancing adjustments from Kenny Dillingham's philosophy and his own:
"I think we continue to tweak it to fit our personnel. Kenny has a plan along with Junior [Adams] that they kind of mapped out together. Our whole offensive staff is really working together to map out what that's going to look like, but it's all based on our personnel. Like I love play-action shots, right? But at the end of the day, you better be able to protect the quarterback for play-action shots. We got a good offensive line, but that plan has to work together. I like the ability to run the ball, but we have to figure out what runs fit our scheme the best. It's going to carry a lot of the pieces that he's obviously been involved in, but part of that professional development next week is what wrinkles can we add to our system to make us better moving forward. So all of that will add up, and I think it'll give us the evolution of what our 2022 offense looks like."
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